http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Republicans are shellshocked over losing a third House seat in a special election this year. Much as a series of special-election defeats by Democrats in 1994 augured that the first midterm election of the Clinton years would be bad for the party, the GOP now worries it could lose up to 20 House seats this fall. That would place Republican numbers in the House in the range of their pre-1994 levels  and make the party a hopelessly outnumbered minority.

In a memo this week to his colleagues, Rep. Tom Davis, a former chairman of the national committee that runs the party's House campaigns, called this year's political climate "far more toxic than the fall of 2006, when we lost 30 seats (and our majority)." He called the special-election losses in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi "canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall, if steps are not taken to remedy the current climate."

What worries Republicans the most about their loss in Mississippi this week is that it came in one of the party's most solid districts. President Bush won 62% of the vote there in 2004, and the district is one of the most socially conservative in the country. But Democrats recruited Travis Childers as a candidate who could appeal to the district's many rural voters with his conservative stands on abortion, guns and federal meddling in local affairs. Republican Greg Davis was a former mayor in DeSoto County, an upscale suburb of Memphis, Tenn.

Republicans pulled out all the stops, spending $1.2 million in national party funds in the race and bringing in former senator Trent Lott, current senator Roger Wicker (whose elevation from the House created the vacancy) and Vice President Dick Cheney to campaign for Mr. Davis. They also ran ads attempting to link Mr. Childers to Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The tactic fell flat as Mr. Childers won 54% of the vote.

How he won that victory should be as worrisome to Republicans as the size of it. The Republican vote didn't collapse everywhere. In DeSoto County, Mr. Davis won 75% of the vote. But in the rural counties that make up over 80% of the district, Mr. Childers cleaned up.

Take Lee County, which was named after Robert E. Lee and contains the city of Tupelo, where Elvis Presley was born. Although the county is one-quarter black, Mr. Bush won 66% of the overall vote in 2004, which meant the GOP had overwhelming support from white voters. In this week's special election, only 42% of the county went Republican. Among the causes cited by local analysts were a dispirited conservative base angry over the record of the last GOP Congress, anger over high gas prices and frustration with the conduct of the war in Iraq.

Republicans are divided about how to address the party's perils. Some, like the moderate Rep. Davis, say the party has been too controversial and negative. He thinks GOP House members shouldn't have agreed to sustain President Bush's veto of a children's health-care expansion bill last year.

Others say Republicans have given their base and fiscally conservative independents no reason to think they've changed the big-government habits they developed when they ran Congress during the first six years of the Bush administration. "Since the 2006 elections, Republicans have done absolutely nothing to redefine themselves," says Arizona's Rep. John Shadegg. "We can't even get behind an earmark moratorium bill limiting pork barrel spending."

Although congressional Republicans have many gripes about John McCain, they would do well to embrace some aspects of his record: his pledge to veto all earmark spending, his record of opposing corporate welfare, and his willingness to make bold free-market proposals to reform health care.

Republicans should also realize they have one card up their sleeve in November. Over the past few decades, the public has increasingly shown a suspicion of one-party government, with some voters even hoping to keep power divided so that neither party's extreme wings can exercise undue influence over policy. Since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the government has been united  with the president's party holding majorities in both houses of Congress  only about 15% of the time (in 1993-94, early 2001 and 2003-06).

In 1996, the Democrats had a chance to seize control of the government. Bob Dole was clearly going to lose to a reinvigorated Bill Clinton, and polls showed that GOP control of one or both houses was in jeopardy. Republicans, in control of Congress for two years, were suffering from many of the same problems they are now  an identification with unpopular positions on issues and a relentless Democratic ad campaign designed to undermine their most vulnerable incumbents.

The Republican National Committee decided to take bold action by directly appealing to the public's fondness for divided government and fear of one-party rule. It rook out ads that featured a fortuneteller staring into a crystal ball showing scenes of Biblical devastation, plague and conflict were seen. The announcer warned what could happen if Democrats swept the elections:

"Remember the last time Democrats ran everything? The largest tax increase in history. Government-run health care. More wasteful spending. Who wants that again? Don't let (insert local state) down. Don't let the media stop you from voting. And don't hand Bill Clinton a blank check."

It worked. Republicans gained two seats in the Senate and lost only a handful in the House. Haley Barbour, the then chairman of the RNC and now governor of Mississippi, told me at the time that the ads had stopped the slide in the polls of several vulnerable members and helped boost voter turnout among listless Republicans.

With John McCain at best an even bet to win the White House, Republicans may enter the fall homestretch with the prospect of losing the White House and sinking much further into minority status. It would be better if congressional Republicans finally decided to adopt a coherent message and a bold reform program for this fall's elections. But an alternative may be to emulate their 1996 success and make a direct appeal to voters to keep power divided so that Democrats once again don't have a blank check.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.